Varicose veins have vexed humanity throughout recorded history. There are references to varicose veins and the attendant risks of surgery in the Ebers papyrus of 1550 BC. For the working man or woman who must be on their feet much of the day, painful varicose veins can be debilitating. For the athlete, varicose veins can put an early stop to sports activities.
Invasive medical treatments are available and can be effective in some cases. To provide a non-exhaustive summary here, these include stripping (surgical removal of veins), sclerosis (blocking veins via injection of chemical agent or other means), and more recently, venous valve cuffing (implanting devices which reduce circumference of major venous valves). But for the many cases where these treatments are not appropriate or are ineffective, the primary non-invasive medical approach is the application of bandages or elastic hosiery to compress the limb. In the material that follows we will show that this compression approach also has its problems, and that patients who live with this type of treatment will welcome a better solution.